Dodging and burning are techniques used to lighten or darken a part of an image while leaving the rest of the image unchanged.

'Burning in' darkens an area by exposing it to more light [longer time] than the rest of the image. Burning in, in it's simplest form, means exposing a sheet of paper for the normal amount of time and then using a piece of cardboard with a hole in it to selectively expose a part of the sheet to more light.

'Dodging' lightens an area by exposing it to less light [shorter time] than the rest of the image. Dodging, in it's simplest form, means exposing a sheet of paper for the normal amount of time while using a small piece of cardboard to selectively shade a part of the sheet so that it receives less light.

Both effects are controlled by the amount of light added or the amount of light withheld and the area affected.

When you get to dodging and burning, remember your Law of Reciprocity. If you wish to increase the density of a local area of the print with a 16 second exposure by one stop you need to double the exposure for the area you burn in to 32 seconds total. Dodging a local portion of the print, reduce it by half so you only give that portion of the print 8 second's exposure.

If you wish to increase the density of a local area of the print with a 16 second exposure by one stop . . .

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Yup.

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Well, technically your math is correct up there, so sure, that's a "yup". But I'd refrain from telling a newbie to make a full stop adjustment a routine when learning burning/dodging. As Ann says, it could be a minor adjustment is all that's needed. This person may have been taught to think in percentages, as well.

A beginner needs first to grasp the concept that light falling onto silver gelatin paper makes it turn when slipped into the developer, and dodging/burning help control how you direct that light. Keeping it basic and advancing from there is how we learn.